In overweight persons, excess adipose tissue is nowadays mostly removed by surgery, for example by liposuction. In such surgery, adipose cells are removed from the chosen sites beneath the skin by suction using hollow needles. Such invasive therapeutic procedures of plastic surgery always involve a certain risk, however, in so far as complications occur during the operation and during subsequent healing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,143,063 discloses a method of removing fatty tissue by focusing microwaves onto the adipose tissue to be removed. In this method, a focusing device in the form of a parabolic reflector is used for field concentration. The use of parabolic reflectors as individual emitters requires a highly material- and cost-intensive production process for the electromedical device, in particular when the device is to have a plurality of individual emitters. Furthermore, the use of parabolic reflectors as the focusing device places limitations on the focusing and concentration ability of the described apparatus, which do not correspond to the requirements desired in a medical application.
Publication U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,790 discloses a method for the non-invasive removal of adipose tissue. In this publication, adipose tissue that is to be removed is irradiated using microwave lenses for focusing. In addition to this apparatus, which is based on complex microwave optics, medicaments having a metabolic action are also used and are intended to generate increased lipid metabolism. A reduction in the volume of the adipose cells is thereby achieved without causing cell death of the adipose cells. The complex microwave optics that is used has microwave lenses, which are known to be of low quality and to have a high optical aberration. These properties prevent the microwave radiation that is used from being focused in an advantageous manner in terms of an effective treatment, because the emitted radiation can be limited to the desired treatment region only with difficulty.